In this book, we will work with several open source and proprietary technologies. To simplify the tests that we will carry out, we will use Docker to deploy databases and frameworks.

IoT is the most recent stage in the evolution of the internet: from Internet of Content, through Internet of Services (Web 2.0), to IoT:

Figure 1.1 – Evolution of the internet: from social to machine-to-machine

In the last five years, IoT has reached widespread diffusion and a high level of maturity; with over 15 billion devices installed, the IoT has entered our homes, offices, and industries.

This is because the IoT is more than just a new technology that impacts a restricted range of people or a specific market. It can be better understood as a set of technologies that impacts us all, and will change markets, even creating new ones. The IoT is changing our lives, feelings, and perceptions of the physical world daily, by modifying how we interact with it. The development of the IoT is a crucial moment in the history of humanity because it is changing our mindset, culture, and way of living.

You might currently be able to regulate...

As previously discussed, the IoT is not just a specific technological innovation, but a radical change that will impact the whole of human society. This means that the IoT will affect nearly every aspect of our personal and professional lives and any sector of the economy, including the following:

• Industrial and manufacturing
• Supply chain
• Retail
• Financial and marketing
• Healthcare
• Transportation and logistics
• Agricultural and environmental
• Energy
• Smart cities and smart grids
• Smart homes and buildings
• Government and military security forces
• Education
• Sports and fitness

All of these are already involved in the digital transformation that has been caused by the IoT and are likely to play a greater role in this in the future. Across all uses of the IoT, the common feature is the smart object.

From a qualitative perspective, a smart object is a multidisciplinary object that includes the following elements:

The IoT is sometimes used as a synonym for big data or smart sensors, is sometimes confused with the cloud, and is sometimes linked to machine learning and AI.

All of these things are partially true:

• IoT uses sensors and devices to acquire data
• IoT uses big data technology to store data
• IoT is normally deployed on the cloud to improve scalability
• IoT uses advanced analytics and AI to process data

However, on the flip side, there’s this to consider:

• IoT is focused on a data stream, rather than having huge amounts (petabytes) of data storage
• IoT can use on-premises solutions through virtualization technology

In this book, we will explore the most common IoT cloud solutions, such as AWS and Azure. We will also look at other common open source technologies.

These technologies can be used to build an IoT platform from scratch or to integrate with an existing one. We will also consider other commonly used commercial...

After the advent of the steam engine in 1760, steam was used to power everything from agriculture to textile manufacturing. This caused the First Industrial Revolution and the age of mechanical production. At the end of the 19th century came the arrival of electricity, new modes of labor organization, and mass production, which started the Second Industrial Revolution. In the second half of the 20th century, the development of semiconductors and the introduction of electronic controllers produced the beginning of the automation era and the Third Industrial Revolution. In the Hannover exhibition of 2011, Henning Kagermann, Wolf-Dieter Lukas, and Wolfgang Wahlster coined the term Industry 4.0 for the project of renewing the German manufacturing system using the capabilities of the latest digital technology.

Industry 4.0 is able to do the following:

• Connect or merge production with information and communication technology
• Merge customer data with machine...

In this chapter, we have analyzed the origin of the IoT and looked at how it came about through a combined set of technologies. We then learned about the key technologies that underlie the IoT, going into its use cases and business models. We defined the IoT as a technological layer that creates a digital twin of a physical object in the cloud, making the object more intelligent due to the interaction of its digital twin with other digital images living in the cloud. We also identified four levels to define the smartness of a product or object. We then looked at how the IoT can be applied to the industrial world, thereby beginning the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Industry 4.0. We looked at the key transformation elements that mark out the IIoT. We also highlighted some of the main use cases of the IIoT and the main differences between the IoT and the IIoT. We then listed and explored the different types of analytics that apply to industrial data. Finally, we clarified and...